📖 This article is part 3 of wider series on “Fundraising 101 for MENA VCs” – you can check-out earlier instalments here.
There are, broadly speaking, two schools of thought about how to pitch LPs in MENA, and the tension between them runs through almost every conversation we had for this piece.
The first school says you need to show receipts. Don't talk about the region's demographics or Vision 2030 or the size of the addressable market. Talk about deals. Real ones. With real multiples. If you've generated returns, lead with returns, because nothing else you say will be as persuasive and most of what you're tempted to add will actually dilute the message.
The second school says you should sell the story. The region is at an inflection point, institutional capital is flowing in, the regulatory environment is maturing, and the opportunity exists precisely because global LPs haven't figured out MENA yet. Performance matters, of course, but if you're an emerging manager (or managing in an emerging ecosystem), you may not have the track record to lead with, and that's fine, because the story itself is the product.
The reality, as you might expect, is that the best pitches do both. But the emphasis matters enormously, and it depends on who you are, what fund you're on, and (perhaps most importantly) who you're pitching to.
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Lead with the deals
We're not talking so much about the region. We're talking about our track record and our history. I have 16 years of history in the ecosystem, so I can talk about that. These are the deals that we've done. Look how cool they are. Look, I made 40x. Look, I did 60x. These things are nice. Because if I talk about the region, it's all theoretical and "look how great it is." But if I talk real deals, then it's not theoretical. I've done this.
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